


All Our Castles in The Air

by bellepeppertronix



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Morning Cuddles, Sleepy Cuddles, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 23:30:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1446931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellepeppertronix/pseuds/bellepeppertronix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tavish and Jane and a sleepy morning before the WAR.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Our Castles in The Air

Jane woke up with a half-start.  
The room was dark, pale gray bars of dawn light stretching across the ceiling, diluting the blue-white light of the streetlamps outside. 

For a moment his thoughts were a mess of shifting blurs, dozens of views of cracked, water-spotted motel room ceilings flickering through his mind one after another as he tried--with increasing anxiousness--to place where he was. There was no sigh of tires on pavement as cars pulled past, no rattling trucks, no mutter of voices outside.  
It was cold. There _was_ a persistent, muted rattling noise coming from somewhere, though, and someone was quietly snoring--  
Someone who was lying on his left arm, their forehead pressed into his chest. 

Tavish's head--his soft, tightly-curled black hair brushing against Jane's chin. The other man's breath stirred faintly across his chest. 

The panic faded like fog evaporating under sun. Over his head, the ceiling resolved not into chipping, stained popcorn-stucco, but smooth white plaster. When he turned his head slightly, he saw the soft rattling was coming from an air conditioner unit, mounted in the wall just beneath the window. The drapes--heavy and brown, edged at their bottom with a geometric, vaguely Native American-esque design of yellow diamonds--were drawn almost completely shut, except for a fluttering veil of translucent curtain, which admitted a slivered, silvery view of open sky outside.

He was safe. He was with Tavish. They were in a hotel--a very nice hotel, if he remembered right (though he was worried he didn't). They were in Las Vegas. 

With every detail he listed to himself, the anxiety ebbed, until it was back in the locker where it belonged.  
When he felt he could breathe right again, he stretched a little, shifting the leg that wasn't between Tavish's, and sighing. His hands skimmed over the expanse of Tavish's back, fingertips finding dips in the supple muscles.

The Scotsman groaned softly and yawned. "Wha' time is it, Janey?"  
"Not morning yet," Jane mumbled, feeling a little guilty for having woken him up. "We've got awhile yet, before we've gotta get up." 

He tipped his head down slightly, pressed a stubbly kiss to Tavish's shoulder. The other man shifted slightly, sliding his arm around Jane's waist. He went still again, and a moment later was snoring again.

Like it was perfectly normal. Hell, he thought, sometimes he forgot it _wasn't_ normal--that he wasn't normal, that what he had with Tavish wasn't 'normal', not by a stretch.  
Before the thoughts could go down any more worrisome roads, he stopped himself. He lay back and tried to relax.

There were a lot of things he didn't think about.  
Jane didn't think about how, at first, whenever they were out at bars, he hadn't felt comfortable sitting across a table from Tavish unless one or both of them had women with them.

He didn't think about how, their first few times, they'd started by bringing women back to the room with them--how easy it had seemed, then. And then, how hard it was to keep his eyes on either of the women, when Tavish was right there. 

They'd locked eyes, once, in the middle of it, each man on his own bed, both of them fucking one of a pair of incredibly well-endowed off-duty flight stewardesses, who had exchanged Looks after they'd all finished. In the hall outside, one of them--a plump, chesty brunette--had leaned in for a final kiss, her hand dipping deftly into his pocket, and had whispered to him that he and his 'friend' should get in contact with them the next time they were in Vegas or Reno. 

He didn't think about how the way she said 'friend' made his stomach drop, heat blooming through his body.  
He didn't think about Tavish's hand on his wrist as he closed the door, the dark room, the other man speaking to him. 

He didn't think about the fact that, in the quiet darkness, he was the one who asked first.  
All he thought about was the smooth, firm planes of the other man's back beneath his palms and fingertips--the way they breathed in tandem, one breath in for Tavish, one out for Jane, as if they were one another's iron lungs.  
He smiled, a little. It was a fitting metaphor, he thought. Neither of them being able to breathe without the other.

But the thought brought up the nagging fear that he was the only one who felt this--that Tavish was just 'army-gay', and that, once given half a change and a free life with decent pay at another job, the whole thing between them would dry up, and evaporate, like a mirage, like mist.  
He swallowed, his hand stilling. 

Except that wasn't the only thing he did, or if it was, Tavish still woke up.  
"Why...Janey, lad, are ye all right?" Tavish asked. "You've gone stiff as a corpse!  
Jane tried for a smile.

"I, uh. It's just funny," Jane said. He was awful at this talking thing. Tavish could put words together like a poet, or a comedian; one way sobering and ironic, the other way slapstick-funny. Jane was just good at shouting the obvious in a very loud voice, and he knew this. "I never thought I'd...meet another guy. Never thought a lot of things, to be honest, and I, uh. I certainly never thought I'd be this." he paused again, and took a breath like it would give him strength, before finally mumbling, "Happy."

Tavish had watched him the entire time, dark eye gleaming in the pale dim light. When Jane finished talking, he'd smiled and chuckled a little, pulling away from him to scoot farther up the mattress.  
"Ye don't _look_ too happy. Ye look like you've got far too much on yer mind for a man whose brains I was most dedicatedly fucking out last night."

That got a chuckle out of Jane. Still, he bit his lip, and then soldiered on.  
"No--no." Everything felt wrong. He realized he couldn't do this lying down, and sat up, gently pulling away from the other man.  
Tavish looked up at him, eyebrows raised, and he had to take another deep breath before he trusted himself to speak again.

"Tavish, you--you've gotta understand, I...I am _not_ good at...being with people. I'm not even good at being with _myself!_ Hell, half the time I'm scared shitless I'll say some stupid shit and you'll--" he froze, then, his eyes wide, as Tavish's face set with understanding.

"Janey," he said, drawing it out long and slow. He sat up, as well, the sheets pooling around his waist.  
Jane looked away, feeling stung. He could practically feel his entrails trying to slither away from him because of his own massive cowardice. This was the part, he reflected, where Tavish was going to tell him that he wasn't supposed to get attached; business was business, and the businees between RED and BLU was war.

He felt the man's hand slide slowly up his chest, gentle sinuous points of knuckles and the backs of his fingers. Then those same fingers, pads gentle as a kiss, sliding up his throat.

Involuntarily, he gasped and swallowed. Tavish's palm was warm on his cheek in the next moment, turning his face to look him in the eye.

"Why would you think I'd leave you?" his voice, gentle in the dark, his accent like warm peaks in the sentence.  
Jane gave him a wide, wild, searching look. Was he serious? he wanted to ask. He didn't have much to offer that many men would like.

He wasn't actually handsome; he was loud; and last, but certainly not least, he was literally certifiably crazy. Even _he_ knew this. Sometimes he heard sounds that had no sources, and saw things that weren't there. He would remember things that had happened to _other people_ , and if no one was around to correct him, he'd just keep grafting on stolen memories until he had a patchwork mess that made no sense, and which would fall apart later even under his own scrutiny--leaving him with nothing but confusion and the vague sense that he'd lost something important, but was unable to even remember what it was.

And he didn't want Tavish to _know_ this, because how could anyone like that--someone so handsome he could walk into any bar and grin and say _one sentence_ , and have _everyone_ in the place eating out of his hand and trying to buy him drinks; someone smart enough to go toe-to-toe with the Engineer and not leave the conversation dazed and confused, someone who actually corrected the Medic about chemical formulas from time to time, someone the Heavy Weapons Guy casually asked to make him custom-made explosive rounds for his beloved miniguns, which he allowed no one else to even touch--how could anyone like that take one look at him, the screaming guy with the bloody trench shovel, and settle for him?

"Janey," Tavish was saying.  
He couldn't look him in the face. Hot lashes of shame were burning his insides up.  
"Janey, would ye look at me? Please?"  
"I've--" he tried, "I--I know you don't...want to be with an old broken-down war-horse like me. I just wanted...you're the first person who _understood_. Who didn't just think I was just crazy, and nothing else--"

"Janey--"

"And you're my best friend, so if I've--if I put my foot in it--if I've EVER put my foot in it--well, then, god damn it, I am an AMERICAN and I will...I'll just...stop, if you want me to." And he wa staring at the other man's face, searching, trying not to look like he was pleading. 

Tavish hesitated a moment before speaking. "But I don't _want_ ye to stop," he said.  
Jane stared, wide-eyed, for a long moment, before blurting out, "You...you mean you aren't just army-gay, and..."

Tavish laughed, quiet in the dark. "Janey, lad, I've got money comin' out me ass. I've got a castle, back in Scotland! Trust me, any kind of sex I want, I can get."  
He put his hand on top of Jane's, still warm from where it had been cradled between their bodies.  
"But I want this. With you."

He paused a minute, while it sank in, and Jane felt himself smiling wide enough that his cheeks hurt.  
"You--you do?"  
"Aye, you daft lad." he chuckled some more, and Jane grabbed him in a bear hug that Tavish returned with quiet laughter. His lips brushed Jane's shoulder, his cheek. 

The terrible anxiety eased. Jane felt like he'd been rescued from the inside of a furnace, cool sheets under him and Tavish's warm body pressed against his.

"I do."

When they released each other, Tavish made a huge show of fluffing the pillows and smoothing the sheets, before they settled back under them, curling close around one another. 

Jane murmured, against Tavish's shoulder, "Do you really have a castle?"  
"Oh, aye, Janey. You'd love it, big fir trees everywhere, a wee hamlet attached. In the mornings, you can hear the shephers driving their flocks down the hillsides towards the lower lands, where the grass in the meadows is knee-high. You ought to see it, green as an emerald and laid out between the great green hills, granite boulders everywhere like the scattered knucklebones a'dead giants."  
Jane hummed sleepily. Tavish's voice was a warm burr in his ear.

"Ye could keep yer raccoons there, I'm sure," Tavish continued, his voice slowing slightly. "We could build a hutch for 'em, though they're quite a big bigger than rabbits. They'd like it, I bet."  
"In a hutch? Outside? Where they might get eaten by Scottish demon bears or hellhounds or whatever the hell else roams the countryside over there?" Jane asked. He couldn't actually summon any proper outrage; he felt tired, and completely content.

Tavish's hoarse laugh was quiet in the dark. "Och, all that. It's a simple matter of usin' white birch wood and iron nails for the hutch. Maybe sprinklin' some salt about from time to time. They'll be fine."

Jane yawned, imaginging he and Tavish walking down a hill somewhere, their hands linked, Lieutenant Bites on a doggy leash with a back-harness, trundling along beside them (somewhat) obediently. He could almost feel the grass swishing around their legs, smell the marsh-cool of the misty air.

"Yeah," he murmured. "Sounds like a plan."  
"And I have quite the collection of antique swords, in case any demon bears come a'knockin'. So don't you worry. I'll keep your wee beasties safe."

Jane laughed, sliding his hand down Tavish's arm and twining their fingers.  
"After all this," Tavish whispered. "I'll take you. I promise." 

The last thing Jane saw was the half of Tavish's face, a warm brown in the dim light from outside, his eye a tick of darker ochre, shadows hiding the half of his face with his maimed eye-socket. He slid his other hand under Tavish's cheek, his thumb stroking the velvet-soft edge of skin along the margin of his beard. Tavish's lips brushed his palm.

For now, at least, they slept together, the serene dreamless sleep of lovers, breathing the same breath, for the first time unafraid of the coming dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> I still don't have a beta-reader, and I wrote this rather quickly, so if there are any mistakes, they are mine, and I will fix them if you would be so kind as to tell me!
> 
> Either way, comments are magical and wonderful. Thank you for reading. :)
> 
> Edited to add a content tag about some really ableist language I used and overlooked before. I am sorry if I have offended anyone.


End file.
